Mom Faces Backlash For Asking Why Babysitters Charge $100 For A Full Day— 'It Should Only Be $50 For 8 Hours'
The mom of four is getting called out for not believing babysitters should be paid fairly for their labor.
kmwoods_ / TikTok & Alexander Dummer / Pexels A mom of four named Kourtnie Woods, who states in her TikTok bio that she uses the platform for “rants, mom stuff, and whatever else,” recently posted a video in which she questioned the amount of money she was expected to pay for one-on-one childcare.
The mom faced backlash after asking why babysitters charge $100 for a full day, claiming, ‘It should only be $50 for 8 hours.’
“Since when are babysitters charging $100 a day?” Woods asked. “One kid, 8 hours a day for $100.”
“And don’t get me started on the whole, ‘You should pay your childcare workers more because you’re trusting them with your kids.’ I pay my daycare plenty. [I’m] talking about a back-up sitter for when I need one,” she said in her TikTok video.
“Maybe [it’s] a convenience thing, I don’t know,” Woods continued. “But where I’m from, you pay $50 and that’s, like, on the high end. Boy, let me tell you, I’m about to quit and become a babysitter.”
Woods’ claim that paying a babysitter $100 a day is an unreasonably high amount shows that she doesn’t quite understand the current economy.
According to the US Department of Labor, federal minimum wage has been set at $7.25 an hour since 2009. According to Woods’ accounting techniques, paying someone $100 for 8 hours of labor comes out to $12.50 an hour. Paying a person $50 for 8 hours of labor comes out to $6.25 an hour. Woods apparently believes that babysitters should be paid a dollar less than minimum wage.
Photo: William Fortunato / Pexels
People in the comments section of Woods’ post were quick to point out how low her estimation of childcare wages actually was.
“I’ve never gotten paid less than $20 an hour,” one person said. “I come with qualifications and skills.” Someone else asked Woods, “Is the question, ‘since when do I have to pay fairly for a service?’ Because the answer is, ideally always.”
Woods came back to TikTok to offer an explanation that attempted to justify her thinking in her original post. In her follow-up video, she responded to a comment from someone who clarified how much private childcare costs.
Ava Chinnock replied to Woods’ original video, stating, “I charge $15-$20 an hour! Typically, daycares are a lot cheaper but nannies and babysitters are more expensive.”
Woods said, “First, I want to say thank you for responding in a very respectful way. And second, I just want to say, this is the mix-up here, because I’ve always thought that daycares were the privilege, and more people use in-home babysitters and they were a cheaper way to go. To my understanding, that’s what it’s always been. I thought that daycares were the privilege because not a lot of people get to use daycares.”
“I had it backwards,” she stated. “That’s it. My apologies. No offense to anybody that babysits or nannies. I did not mean to offend you guys.”
Photo: MART PRODUCTION / Pexels
Woods' initial statement made the claim that babysitters only deserve to make $50 an hour for a full day of difficult work. It’s possible that her misguided belief stems from an actual lack of understanding.
Yet for her to declare that belief on a public platform showcases that she’s essentially devaluing the labor and commitment involved in providing childcare.
It’s a well-established fact that childcare costs in the United States are astronomically high and that many families struggle to afford care for their kids. For a parent to use their online platform to openly acknowledge how hard it is to raise children, while simultaneously expressing outrage at paying a fair wage for child-rearing labor, is a very particular kind of out-of-touch behavior.
Alexandra Blogier is a writer on YourTango's news and entertainment team. She covers parenting issues, pop culture analysis and all things to do with the entertainment industry.